"Captain Marvel was the first superhero comic to just throw out the notion of realism. Captain Marvel can fight dragons and meet women from the moon. Anything you can think of, this guy can do, so of course that was an immense hit, because it was taking much more advantage of the form, I think."

So, they brought in C.C. Beck to do a story about a team of six heroes who all got powers from various legendary figures. When this was pitched, it was decided that, while Cast Speciation was cool, All Your Powers Combined just looks better. The hero was to be called Captain Thunder. Except they couldn't get the name. So they called him Captain Marvelous, and then shortened it to Captain Marvel, because it sounds punchier. The character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (February, 1940). (#1 was only an ashcan copy, never intended for distribution.)

Little Billy Batson is a homeless orphan who is led by a mysterious stranger into a deserted train station, where a train with no driver leads him to a wizard's lair. There, the wizard gives him the power of six archetypal figures: the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury, which when put together spell F-L-Y-I-N-G B-R-I-C-K. To summon these powers, he must shout the name of the wizard — "SHAZAM!" — which summons down lightning and transforms him into a superhuman adult with a bright red costume with a freakin' sweet cape.

Billy Batson goes on to get a job as a radio announcer (yes, a ten-year-old announcer), but as his Superpowered Alter Ego, Captain Marvel, fights evil and chaos. He acquired an impressive Rogues Gallery, including diminutive Mad Scientist Doctor Sivana, villainous Super SoldierCaptain Nazi, atomic android Mister Atom, former holder ofthe Marvel mantleBlack Adam, and others. But he also had a group of staunch allies known as the Marvel Family, who had also (mostly) been gifted by Shazam; his best friend Freddy Freeman became Captain Marvel Junior, and his long-lost sister Mary Bromfield became Mary Marvel (complete with Mini Dress Of Power). Initially, Mary had her own pantheon of goddesses from which she derived power (including Zephyrus... which was actually a male, but then there aren't many mythological figures whose names start with a "Z"). Later, she switched over to Billy's pantheon. Then there were the Lieutenant Marvels, Uncle Marvel, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, and Tawny the Talking Tiger...

This was Captain Marvel's Golden Age. His own title regularly sold over a million copies a month (FYI, the best selling comics of today usually top out at around 100,000), Mary and Junior had their own titles when most heroes had to settle for eight-page backups in anthology books. There was even a movie serial, The Adventures of Captain Marvel, which was the first superhero film ever produced. He was arguably the most popular and recognizable superhero of the 1940s.

Then there was a problem. On the one hand, there was Captain Marvel, a black-haired all-American feller in a costume with a lot of bright red, who can punch through cars and stop robbers... and on the other hand, there was Superman, a black-haired all-American feller in a costume with a lot of bright red, who... well, you get the idea. Admittedly, this described a lot of superheroes back then (and even today!), but Marvel had the flaw of selling more than his inspiration. DC Comics brought the case to court, and Fawcett fought it out for a while. Eventually, though, the superheroes stopped selling so well, and Fawcett decided to throw in the towel; they closed down their comics division and moved on.' The final appearance of the character was 'Marvel Family'' #89 (January, 1954). The name "Marvel", however, would return to haunt DC Comics.

A few years later, The Silver Age of Comic Books started up, and superheroes became popular again. Fawcett couldn't take advantage of this, because the settlement with DC had specified that they never publish a Captain Marvel comic again, but eventually, DC themselves expressed interest in the character. Fawcett licensed the whole shebang to DC (with the latter eventually buying the rights lock, stock and barrel), and after a couple of tryouts, they put out a new series in 1973. Unfortunately, they couldn't actually call the series "Captain Marvel", because Marvel Comics had snapped up the name in the meantime (and created their own character, and eventually a string of characters, by that name), so they titled it Shazam! and went ahead. The series, though never a hot seller, did fairly well and even found a way to update its look from the simple, but dated, cartooniness of C.C. Beck◊ to the rich illustrations of Don Newton◊ to fit in the The Bronze Age of Comic Books; the Marvelverse (no relation) was slotted into DC's Multiverse as Earth-S, and he occasionally crossed over with DC's other heroes — naturally, the long-debated fight between Cap and Superman was one of the first. Incidentally, it's rather ambiguous who has the edge since Captain Marvel doesn't have Supes' vision and breath powers, but his powers are magic based which is a traditional weakness for Superman.

And then came Crisis on Infinite Earths, merging the DC multiverse, including Earth-S, into a single universe. Hilarity Ensued. The major change is that whereas Billy and Captain Marvel were largely considered two separate people, now Captain Marvel is unambiguously set with Billy's youthful personality. This means to others, this supposedly adult superhero has a personality of a child, albeit guided by the wisdom of Solomon. This has led to awkward situations more than once and when he was forced to reveal his true form to Superman in First Thunder, the Kryptonian made a bee-line to Shazam to confront him about recruiting a child as his champion. Also, the formation of the Marvel Family was reversed with Mary Marvel, who was the last major addition to arrive outside of Mr. Tawky Tawny in the original stories, usually meeting her brother first, then Jr. arrives later with the Lt. Marvels considered strictly afterthoughts if they are included at all. Black Adam was also reimagined as walking the line between Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain, Token Evil Teammate, and so on.

So after a few comics and a brief membership spot in the Justice League of America, Captain Marvel became part of the wider DC Continuity. Whenever they needed a Superman-level fighter who was immune to kryptonite or magic, particularly when Superman is being mind-controlled or a similar emergency, he was there. Whenever Wonder Woman needed to hit someone we didn't care about, he was there. Whenever villains needed someone hokey to fight, thus proving they were a Superstitious And Cowardly Lot, he was there. His standard shtick was to represent the sunny, old-timey virtues of Golden Age comics in the darkness of The Dark Age of Comic Books. On the other hand, despite the stereotype set by those fights, DC Comics also published First Thunder to show that Superman and Captain Marvel actually get along well in the same Universe: Superman appreciates having an ally with equivalent powers to help him fight supernatural foes that could otherwise lay out him with a shrug, and Billy values having the greatest of the superheroes as a mentor to help him through his double life's rough spots.

Starting in 2005, though, the franchise hit a rough patch. The characters were constantly getting retooled, such as having Captain Marvel take the Wizard's place as "Marvel" and Freddy Freeman taking Billy's place as a hero named Shazam, apparently to get around the fact that I Am Not Shazam. Many of these retools were Darker and Edgier, the most infamous instance probably being "Evil Mary Marvel" in Countdown to Final Crisis. There was a bright spot, though, in that Black Adam was one of the leading characters in the acclaimed series 52, gaining Morality Pets in the form of Isis and Osiris. (They were both killed by the end of the event, but hey, this is comic books, Death Is Cheap.)

Eventually, Captain Marvel's history was wiped clean by DC's New 52 reboot. He re-debuted in backup stories in Justice League, with these stories focusing on the magical aspect rather than straight superheroics.Billy's personality was changed to make him more of a sarcastic and pessimistic brat; the kindly Wizard Shazam was replaced with the grumpy Mamargan, the Australian aboriginal god of thunder; and Billy's powers are more lightning-based than before, with his physical powers still present but toned down considerably. Oh, and DC said "heck with it" and changed his name from "Captain Marvel" to "Shazam".

Moreover, During the Darkseid War event in late 2015, Billy's connection to his original gods was severed and Mamargan had to scramble to find new gods for Billy to draw upon. Shazam now has the Strength of S’ivaa (a DC original, a god of destruction from outer space), the Fire of H’ronmeer (a DC original, the Martian god of fire), the Compassion of Anapel (a Russian goddess of reincarnation), the Source Manipulation of Zonuz (another DC original, Darkseid's father), the Boldness of Atë (Greek goddess of mischief and ruin), and the Lightning of Mamargan himself. The upshot is that Shazam is even less of a flying brick and even more of a spellcaster and energy blaster.

However, the original Captain Marvel still exists as part of the Multiverse, both on Earth-5 ("Thunderworld") and on Brainiac's Blood Moon ("Convergence"), so DC has multiple versions of the character to work with.

Spoofed in the 1979 film J-Men Forever (consisting of Gag Dub Republic Film Serial clips) with Billy Batchit, who becomes 'The Caped Madman' by uttering the magic word "SH-BOOM!" which enables Billy to "take on all the vices of a J-Man of the Secret Service: S for Sneaky, H for Hateful, B for Bigotted, O for Obnoxious, another O for Double-Obnoxious, and M for Mean!"

Similarly spoofed in a classic issue ofMAD, where Superduperman got into a fight with him, with "Billy Spafon" becoming "Captain Marbles" by saying the magic word "Shazoom!": Strength, Health, Aptitude, Zeal, Ox, power of, Ox, power of another, Money!

DC Comics themselves had a character called Captain Thunder, a Captain Marvel Expy (real name Willie Fawcett) with an origin based on Native American spirits and the magic word "Thunder!" (Tornado, Hare, Uncas, Nature, Diamond, Eagle and Ram) who teamed up with Superman before Earth-S made its debut.

The Dandy parodied the character with the spoof superhero "Bananaman", who was summoned when his Billy Batson expy ate a banana.

Issue 8 of Sonic the Hedgehog had a plot where Dr. Robotnik builds a number of superhero robots based on non-Archie properties. One of them was "Captain Mar-bot", who says "Shazham!". Sonic defeats it with ease.

In Alan Moore's Supreme run, which turned the title into a Homage to Silver Age Supermen, "Mightyman" is the Captain Marvel Captain Ersatz.

Shazam/Captain Marvel provides examples of:

Aborted Arc: Jerry Ordway seemed to be going somewhere with a story in Justice Society of America where — post Freddy's Trials of Shazam and Mary turning evil — the wizard just took all their powers away. The story also revealed there was an Evil Counterpart to the Rock of Eternity called the Rock of Finality. For a while this left the Marvel family in a holding pattern as other writers waited to see where Ordway wanted to take this. Then the New 52 happened and Shazam got completely reinvented.

According to Newsarama, What Could Have Been: "the tale would have involved a depowered Billy Batson reclaiming the scattered powers of the wizard Shazam from different individuals who had received them and were misusing them. One of these, a black youth, would actually use his powers wisely, and Billy would allow him to keep his powers, turning him into Vulcan, the first black member of the Marvel Family – modeled after the Black Vulcan, a character from the Super Friends cartoon."

Awesome but Temporary: In the New 52, Justice League #21 had Billy accidentally sharing a portion of his power with Mary, Freddy, and the other foster children instead of Black Adam as intended. He later shares the same power with Tawny, his pet tiger, at the cost of the others losing some of their power. Due to Billy's incomplete mastery of the magic, his foster siblings and the tiger soon lose their powers by the end of the issue.

Beauty Equals Goodness: Sivana's evil children, Georgia and son Thaddeus Jr, are vaguely gargoylish like their father. His good children, the Meaningfully Named Beautia and Magnificus, take after their mother's side of the family and look like pin-ups.

52 plays with this notion somewhat, depicting the former as still being fundamentally insecure and awkward teenagers, while showing Venus and her offspring to be not outright malevolent, but rather, extremely shallow and spoiled people (Venus even casually uses a racial slur at the dinner table).

Big Good: Captain Marvel is often treated like this, even in comparison to Superman, possibly due to Children Are Innocent. It's explicitly stated in the comics that Billy Batson would be Marvel full-time to help people, if not for the wizard Shazam insisting that Batson himself deserves some happiness in his life, too.

Bound and Gagged: Almost every climax in the Golden Age revolved around the villain trussing and gagging Billy — either to prevent him saying the magic word, or just because they didn't want a nosy kid snooping around — and whether he could manage to get it off in time to save himself from a deathtrap; the nigh-invincible Captain Marvel beating the bad guys to a pulp was, naturally, a Foregone Conclusion. This also happened frequently to his teammates, Mary and Freddy.

Although played with. In the Golden Age nearly all of Cap's foes were ones he could defeat with a single punch once he got close enough. Whenever he fought someone with super-powers of their own, they tended to be exactly as powerful as he was so battle was pointless, and he had to get tricky.

By the Power of Grayskull!: He and Mary say Shazam, Freddy says Captain Marvel. Basically, say the name of your benefactor, and off you go. Ibac and Sabbac say, well, Ibac and Sabbac in order to get similar results.

Canon Discontinuity: Several versions of the main character have been here and gone by this point. But one of these vanished within the same continuity. After 1987's Crisis CrossoverLegends, the post-Crisis version of Captain Marvel was given a new origin in the Roy Thomas penned Shazam!: The New Beginning, which was followed up on in the then-anthology series 'Action Comics Weekly'. Among the highlights were Sivana's character being merged with Billy's Uncle Ebenezer, Captain Nazi being a modern white supremacist, and Fawcett City being replaced by San Francisco. The continuity never caught on, and was disregarded in favor of the later far more popular 'The Power Of Shazam!'.

Card-Carrying Villain: Dr. Sivana. He regularly describes himself as evil ("The World's Wickedest Scientist!"). In one late Golden Age issue (specifically, Captain Marvel Adventures, issue 130, the cover story "Double Doom") he even gets into a fight with King Kull (Sivana wants to enslave the human race but Kull wants to exterminate it), and as Cap drags the both of them to jail they're still arguing over which of them's the most evil.

Clark Kenting: Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel, Jr/Captain Marvel III. The only difference between his real appearance and his alter ego is that the former is crippled and the latter isn't. Mary did this in her early apperances, but now changes into an adult, like her brother.

During Jerry Ordway's run, Billy occasionally used his adult form to convince the school he wasn't a minor living alone. No-one noticed that "Uncle Ebenezer" looked like Cap in civvies with a beard. On the other hand, long time Fawcett residents frequently note that Cap looks a bit like the late C.C. Batson.

Comically Invincible Hero: In the '70's comics, Cap's sheer overpowering advantage over just about everything he fought was a constant source of jokes, with him often standing around yawning while the bad guys took swings at him and getting bored when being shot with death rays.

Daddy's Little Villain: Two of Sivana's children, daughter Georgia and son Thaddeus Jr. (to give Mary and Freddy, respectively, archenemies of their own). His other two kids, Beautia and Magnificus, turned good.

Played with when the Sivana Family was brought back in 52. Georgia and Thaddeus are both budding evil scientists, but they're mostly just harmless and want to use their dad's inventions to go back in time and warn their younger selves about certain stuff so they won't become socially awkward. They're treated like crap by their mother and older siblings, and the mom is pretty much racist while Beautia and Magnificus are beautiful and vapid morons.

Death by Origin Story: Freddy's grandfather was murdered by Captain Nazi in the middle of a battle with Captain Marvel.

Depending on the Writer: While most of the time Shazam/Cap Marvel is just Billy in another shape, sometimes it is handled more in a Split Personality/Sharing a Body-manner. The former is generally the case post-Crisis, while the latter is generally the rule with pre-Crisis and Fawcett Captain Marvel. Convergence Shazam and Multiversity Thunderworld go with the Golden Age approach.

Jeff Smith's ''Monster Society of Evil" series initially had Billy and Captain Marvel as separate personalities (with them even de-fusing when they visit Shazam at the Rock of Eternity), but as the story goes on their personalities merge and they eventually reach an equilibrium.

Dumb Muscle: Ibac. Which is weird since his second patron is supposed to give him Cunning. During the Monster Society storyline Cap even has to remind him how one-sided their previous battles have been.

Dynamic Akimbo: He does this trope often, for two reasons. One, he's a Supermanexpy, so of course he uses one of his most famous stances. And two, the dynamic pose helps contrast him with the younger and more modest Billy Batson.

Even Evil Has Standards: As bad as they are, even the collective Sivanas of the multiverse are put off by "Lecter" Sivana in Multiversity, a masked, blood-spattered villain who went back in time to kill Billy Batson before he could become Captain Marvel, and who wants to mess up the other Marvels.

Evil Counterpart: Black Adam. Though Adam's "evilness" tends to vary. A lot. Then there's Ibac, who gains his powers from four brutal historical figures, and Sabbac who takes his abilities from six Demon Lords.

Evil Costume Switch: When Mary accquires Black Adam's powers, her costume turns black and she gains a new level in moral ambiguity.

And a much higher hemline!

Evil Laugh: A lot of Captain Marvel's recurring enemies do this. In some of the older comics he's able to recognize what villain he's currently up against by their distinctive laugh alone.

Expy: In Love and Capes, Captain Marvel's analogue is Major Might. Mark gets grouchy around him because he thinks he's a "copycat", until the Major's child self reveals that he chose powers like the Crusader's out of admiration. Awww.

For the Evulz: As Merlyn once put it, "Joker and Sivana do it for kicks."

DC later emphasized the Marvel family's magical and lightning associations in an effort to make them more unique.

As Shazam, the former Captain's powers are almost entirely lightning-based, with his physical capabilities (strength and invulnerability) toned way down.

After the Darkseid War, he can shoot fire as easily as lightning, but he's even less of a flying brick, since none of his new gods provides invulnerability.

Follow the Leader: An obvious wannabe of Superman, debuting not too long after the Man of Steel.

Which then began to run backwards when Superman himself started copying elements from Captain Marvel, such as a female counterpart and the power of flight. And then DC sued Fawcett for making The Captain too similar.

Grandfather Clause: The Big Red Cheese is about as old school idealistic a superhero as you can get, but the idea of a child transforming into an adult superhero by a magic lightning bolt summoned by a single magic word never gets old.

Henshin Hero: Billy has to switch between his normal form and superhero form by using a magic word. In the New 52, Billy must say the word with good intentions or it will not work.

Hoist by His Own Petard: Captain Marvel sometimes used his magical lightning as an attack, but if he is struck by it he reverts to his mortal alter-ego. As such, many fights have ended with him trying to hit an opponent but winds up hitting himself.

Homage: The Post-Crisis reboot had several to Calvin and Hobbes, including Mr. Tawky Tawny being a stuffed tiger brought to life and Billy having a teacher modeled after Mrs. Wormwood.

Kick the Dog: Captain Nazi, in the middle of a battle with Captain Marvel, took time off to murder Freddy's grandfather and cripple him. Why? For the heck of it. He later came back and tried to finish Freddy off. Why? Once again, for the heck of it.

And between these two acts, he took the time to telephone Hitler himself to boast about how much fun he was having. Even the Fuhrer seemed a little frustrated by his agent's pettiness.

Knight Templar: Mary after gaining Black Adam's powers. Black Adam himself a lot of the time.

Legacy Character: The Captain Marvel title is bestowed on a Champion selected by the previous wielder. The Sabbac title has also been passed from Timothy Karnes to Ishamel Gregor, at the latter's insistence (Timothy, needless to say, did not survive the transfer).

Limited Wardrobe: Unlike most modern comic characters, iterations of Billy usually follow this trope. Lampshaded in Superman/Shazam: First Thunder, when a still-homeless Billy says that he managed to buy 12 identical shirts for $1.

Played for Laughs in Superman/Shazam: The Return Of Black Adam, when Billy pauses to pick between multiple identical outfits hanging in his closet. He has a Superman shirt that he wears to bed, though.

Longer-Than-Life Sentence: Subverted. Captain Marvel, Jr. had a foe called Greybeard. As a young man, he was sentenced to 99 years in prison, to which he sarcastically told the judge how considerate he was to not make it a life sentence. However, he served out his entire sentence and, once free, began a crime spree based on the theme of old age.

Man Child: Captain Marvel often comes across this way, but for a different reason—he's a young boy (or sometimes teenager) named Billy who can transform into an adult superhero. Early on the two forms had different personalities, but most modern interpretations make them the same person, acting like a Cheerful Child in both forms (though Marvel gets a bit of maturity from having the Wisdom of Solomon as one of his powers).

Mars Wants Chocolate: One 1970s story featured aliens who invaded Earth to get their hands on chocolate and candy.

New Powers as the Plot Demands: The extremely vague attribute of "wisdom" is often used this way, variously defined as granting, among other things, super-intelligence, mastery of all known languages (written and spoken), and even mild hypnotic powers.

"Power" was even more vague before he started fighting enemies with powers of their own on a regular basis, and some clarification was required. One Bronze Age comic claimed it acted as an add-on to his other powers; he was as wise as Solomon and Zeus, he was as strong as Hercules and Zeus, and so on.

In one Golden Age story, it was explicitly said what the Power of Zeus did: it made him invulnerable. The Courage of Achilles (which is what his invulnerability is attributed to in more modern stories) instead gave him Achilles' fighting skills as well as literally making him fearless. So the "Power" confusion is not so much New Powers As The Plot Demands but New Powers Because The Writers Forgot What His Old Powers Were. note Mind that the Golden Age comics weren't really written with an eye toward consistency. For instance the way the mythical gods of the setting were depicted seemed different in each appearance.

Non-Standard Character Design: Characters designed by C.C. Beck (and Pete Constanza, working in Beck's style) generally tended to be much more cartoonish and simplified in appearance then those from Mac Raboy, Jack Binder, and other artists; until the final issues of the 70's Shazam title, however, they were almost always drawn "on-model", particularly Billy with his classic Black Bead Eyes. The trend is most noticeable in the finely detailed work of Kurt Schaffenberger◊, where Billy often looks bizarre and inhuman next to the realistic Freddy and Mary.

Some non-DCU spin-off media (such as Batman: The Brave and the Bold) still use the Beck designs, even if the other characters are less cartoonish looking.

Older Alter Ego: Captain Marvel to Billy, and, in some versions, Mary Marvel to, well, Mary. Averted with Captain Marvel Jr/CM3 who looks exactly the same age in and out of uniform.

Out of Focus: In scope of the larger DC Universe. In the New 52, he got an origin story, and then was immediately demoted to a background character, with his own supporting cast disappearing entirely. Equivalents of Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel don't even exist yet (except as unpowered kids), and it doesn't look like they ever will at this rate.

Pimped-Out Cape: Captain Marvel's cape is different than most considering it's fairly short and looks best when it's slung over a shoulder with his arms akimbo.

Run the Gauntlet: One of the earliest in comic books, from the Golden Age even, featured Mister Mind gathering over twenty villains, some not even Captain Marvel enemies, another first, and took about two years of comics before the Monster Society was put away.

Seven Deadly Sins: In the original comic, Shazam had the Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man trapped in stone from inside the Rock Of Eternity (changing some of the sins in the process: Anger, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust were replaced with Hatred, Laziness, Selfishness, and Injustice). Modern day stories seem to switch between the classic Enemies Of Man, and the typical Deadly Sins Depending on the Writer.

Shout-Out: In one issue of The Power of Shazam, Captain Marvel is shown strange alternate versions of himself that might exist if history changed. These include: Captain Thunder (DC's former Captain Ersatz Marvel), a Captain whose limbs and head detach from his body (M.F. Enterprises' Captain Marvel), a Billy Batson who transforms into Captain Marvel by striking a pair of wristbands together (Marvel Comics' Rick Jones and Captain Mar-Vell), and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

Billy Batson's deceased parents were originally referred to as "Merrill" and "Jocelyn" in the Pre-Crisis days, but modern origins have his father named "Clarence Charles "C.C." Batson" (after Captain Marvel's creator, C.C. Beck) and his mother named "Marilyn".

Kid Eternity originally had No Name Given, and was only ever referred to as "Kid." Eventually, some Canon Welding with Shazam made him Freddy's brother, Christopher "Kit" Freeman.

Superhero Speciation: The obvious redundancy with Superman has finally been worked out in modern times with Supes valuing an ally whose similar, but magic and gods based, powers makes him very welcome company against supernatural foes while Cap enjoys him as a mentor.

The Shazam: Monster Society of Evil and Magic of Shazam continuity tries to do this within the family: going with the older idea that Mary's powers are derived from different (female) figures than Billy's, they work a bit differently, such as Mary being faster but Billy being stronger, and Mary able to detect life signs in the surrounding area.

Super Soldier: Captain Nazi is an evil version, and Captain Marvel Jr's arch-nemesis. He's super-strong and bulletproof (and absolutely loyal to the Third Reich), but he's no match for Junior.

Super Weight: Cap, Mary, Junior and Black Adam are all about a 5 on this scale. The Marvel Family generally exercise extreme caution and restraint in their power, holding back unless they know they're up against someone they can cut loose on. Black Adam has shown what can happen when that power isn't restrained, wherein he went on a global rampage that left an entire country destroyed and required every then-able superhero on the planet to stop. Sometimes it's important to remind people that everyone wielding the Power of Shazam is powered by no less than six godlike beings, reinforced by the magical power of a wizard older than human civilization.

Ur-Example: Many other franchises have admitted to being influenced (or outright cribbing) elements from this series, from the Filmation He-Man cartoon (the same studio did an Animated Adaptation of the comic right before He-Man) to some of the heroic Magical Girls. Even the silver-age Flash's costume was said to be loosely based on Captain Marvel's.

Will They or Won't They?: Him and Stargirl, again. They nearly kiss in the most-recent JSA/Marvel story, but it's broken up, and she goes back to crushing on Atom Smasher shortly. Even during the courtship, difficulties arose because unless you knew the Cap's secret, it looked very much like Cap (an ostensibly 25 to 35 year old man ) was making moves on a teenaged girl.

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